


Brave Enough

by escritoireazul



Category: Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies), Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Post-Fallen Kingdom, Survivors, Yuletide Treat, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escritoireazul/pseuds/escritoireazul
Summary: Thanks always goes to my beta who does all sorts of heavy lifting.
Relationships: Kelly Malcolm/Lex Murphy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Brave Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kultiras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kultiras/gifts).



> Thanks always goes to my beta who does all sorts of heavy lifting.

Lex Murphy gets the message at 4 a.m. local time. She’s not asleep, because why would she be, there are plenty of things to do at all hours, and she sleeps when she can, not when she’s supposed to, whatever supposed to even means for her now.

She doesn’t know where Kelly’s traveling these days, and so she has no idea what time it is for her, but it’s not too unusual to get a message in the middle of the night. Not any more unusual than it is for Kelly to message her at all, anymore. They used to talk often.

They used to do a lot of things often.

But she gets the message at 4 a.m.: Dinosaurs are loose on the west coast.

There’s really only one possible response to that: _Oh. Fuck._

*

The bullshit thing is, Kelly thinks, that this isn’t even the first time dinosaurs have been loose in California. Fucking San Diego. She’s never going to live down San Diego, at least not in her own head. 

Most people don’t know who she is, not really. Back then, fresh off a terrifying island, half in love with her dad’s girlfriend because Sarah was the smartest, strongest, most badass woman she’d ever met, pretty sure she’d hear dinosaurs in her nightmares for the rest of her life, and closer to (and prouder of) her dad than she ever could have hoped, Kelly told everyone. 

Yes, dinosaurs were still out there on an island. Yes, that was a T.rex in San Diego. Yes, it really happened, it wasn’t some sort of movie scene gone awry or viral marketing or something else stupid and pointless.

Yes, my dad is Dr. Ian Malcolm. Yes, he survived an island of dinosaurs. Twice. Yes, what he says is true, I believe him, even if I wasn’t there for Isla Nublar, for Jurassic Park itself, dinosaurs are real, they are, they are, genetically created but real, and my dad is right, we should be afraid, they shouldn’t be here, not with us, we’re seeing chaos theory in action.

(Not that she understood chaos theory all that well, but she kept reading and asking her dad questions, and she got closer to it every day.)

So. Dinosaurs roaming around California. Nothing new, not really, but there’s more of them than before, more than one lone T.rex searching for her lost offspring. There’s no luring them onto a boat and sending them back to a sanctuary.

Kelly wonders, suddenly, what happened to Isla Sorna. All this talk about Isla Nublar finally blowing, destroying the remnants of a park built on top of the remnants of another park, that rush to save the dinosaurs, and no one’s talked about InGen’s secret, that other island, the one she can still see sometimes in her dreams, raptors in the tall grass, death clawing toward her. 

She sighs and rests her head back against the wall. She’s waiting in the airport and waiting in the airport is boring even when you’re waiting on a private jet filled with people you love.

Kelly's never known Lex to use the Hammond family jet much, though Tim's put it to good use from what Lex has told her in their infrequent text chains, but Lex has been collecting people along the way this time, Ellie and Sarah and Alan and Billy, even Kelly’s dad who regularly swears he’ll have nothing to do with dinosaurs ever again and yet keeps getting dragged back into it. The only one not showing up is Tim and that’s because he’s somewhere in Russia doing some sort of research and he’s not willing to leave his dig just yet, not until he can shut everything down so that it’s protected.

Outside, she sees a plane touch down. It’s not marked with anything to give it away, it’s as plain as a private jet can be, but she knows it even though she hasn’t seen it in years, hasn’t been on it in even longer.

She pushes off the wall, suddenly jittery, unable to stand still. Her family is here, and they’re going to deal with dinosaurs _again_ , and even with the danger in front of them, she’s happy, so happy, because she loves them and she doesn’t get to see them nearly often enough.

And then there’s Lex. Lex who is very much _not_ like a sister to her, not like Tim feels like a younger brother and Billy like an older brother and Alan like a significantly older brother. Not like Sarah and Ellie on whom Kelly had ridiculous crushes when she was younger and whom she loves now without hesitation or awkwardness from those earlier feelings.

No, Lex is something else entirely, and even if they haven’t been that something else together in a while, she’s never managed to think of Lex as anything else. She loves Lex, and not in a family way, and she misses her, and she’s simultaneously glad to see her and a little bit heartbroken all over again.

And then Lex is off the plane and striding toward the door that leads into the private terminal. She looks better than ever, blonde hair cropped short, longer on the right side than the left, skin tanned, arms and legs clearly muscled. She’s sleek rather than bulky, her sleeveless blouse and slim pants fit her nicely, and Kelly’s mouth goes dry.

Everyone else is behind her, walking with purpose, but even though Lex is not nearly the tallest, she makes it through the door first and immediately wraps Kelly into a hug. She smells of seasalt and a faint floral Kelly can’t place, and she squeezes Kelly hard.

It takes every bit of self-control Kelly has to keep herself from pressing a kiss to the side of Lex’s throat. This lingering hug is unexpected but very, very welcome.

Kelly finds everyone else gathered in front of them when they pull apart, and Sarah watches them, a slight curl to the corner of her mouth, her eyes knowing. Kelly ignores her. She’s heard more than enough of Sarah’s thoughts on Lex, and Kelly and Lex together, and how ridiculous she finds the pair of them.

They all hug her in turn, and she clings to them some, feeling younger for a moment, looking to them for answers.

“Well,” Dad says and rubs his hands together, “here we are gates of death again.”

“That’s certainly a pessimistic way to look at it,” Ellie tells him.

“Change is like death.” Dad smiles at her, softer than his normal smirk, a smile he seems to reserve for Sarah, Ellie, and sometimes Alan. “And dinosaurs roaming wild is a great change.”

“There aren’t very many of them.” Sarah puts her hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “And as far as I’ve heard, no real breeding pairs.”

Dad shrugs. “Life,” he says, and they join him for the last of it, a chorus of exasperation and, beneath it, no small amount of wariness, because they all know he’s been right far too often, “finds a way.”

*

Even when it's infested with dinosaurs, Lex loves California, and she loves bringing her family home.

They settle into her house in the mountains near Santa Cruz, isolated and high enough she can see the glint of the ocean from the balcony that runs the length of the west side of the house. There is a lot of glass along that wall, windows and sliding doors.

Lex hates to feel trapped, hates not being able to see what’s coming for her.

Not that glass is much protection, especially from dinosaurs, but despite knowing what happened in San Diego so many years ago, she’s never really expected that to be a concern. Even now, she feels safer here. Probably safer than she should, considering everything, but again, it's home and her family is here. She may be in danger when they're around, has been at least, but she survives with them, she loves them, and with them, she is safe.

She sets up her computer bank in the main living room and gets to work. Setting alerts and tapping into security feeds and tracking sightings of varying believability on the map up on the big touchscreen on the wall so the others can see it, all of that is easy, almost mindless work. She sets her commands and lets her programs run.

The hard part is figuring out what they’re going to do.

The hardest part is dealing with all the things she feels when she sees Kelly in her home.

They’ve been friends since shortly after the San Diego Incident, when Malcolm introduced them, desperate for his daughter to have someone around her own age who understood how it felt. They started kissing not too long after that and dating in their early twenties and broke up only a couple years later.

They’ve been friends far longer than anything else, but Lex still misses the way Kelly tastes.

“I heard from Claire,” Ellie says the second morning. They’ve been trying to work out a plan, but haven’t made much progress. “She’s on her way here with that raptor wrangler,” Ellie knows his name as well as the rest of them, but she doesn’t like him much because of the whole raptor wrangler thing. Lex can’t really blame her, “and Maisie Lockwood.” 

Lex feels punched. Her breath sticks in her chest and her lungs burn. None of them can possibly know what she knows, and it’s been a long time since she had to hide anything from any of them. Long enough she can’t really remember a time when she might have. She’s never been one for secrets, not from her family, and they’ve been more her family than her parents for a long time now.

But Maisie Lockwood is coming, and Lex knows a secret. A powerful and dangerous secret. A secret that does little to help them, or at least she can’t think of a way it might, but a secret nonetheless.

Kelly takes Lex’s hand. Oh dear. She’s clearly doing a terrible job of hiding her reaction, and Maisie isn’t even here yet.

But Kelly doesn’t ask and no one else seems to notice her discomfort.

None of them know. Not even Tim knows. Grandpa knew, and of course Sir Benjamin, and maybe no one else in the world.

Sarah, who has been doing her predator analysis the way she does best, distracts them. “There are enough pteranodon for breeding, though no one’s gotten close enough to sex them.”

“It didn’t matter before,” Alan says. “That amphibian DNA.”

“Surely they wouldn’t use it again, not after what happened at the park.” Kelly squeezes Lex’s hand then lets go. Lex misses the contact immediately.

“That would have been logical.” Billy laughs, a great loud sound, his head tipped back. “Of course, _not_ opening a second park full of genetically engineered dinosaurs and then creating ever more dangerous predators would also have been logical.”

Kelly groans, but concedes the point.

Lex twists her fingers together. She doesn’t know what to do. Her computers can’t fix this. She can’t tighten security or build a program to stop them or activate locks to hold them in place.

“It was so much easier when I could just kick them,” Kelly says, and that makes most of them laugh. Ellie still looks serious.

“It was easier when Ellie could just send in the calvary,” Alan agrees. He rests his hand on Ellie’s arm and gives her a fond look. “Any hope of that?”

“Maybe,” she allows. “They’re not really meant for hunting dinosaurs, though.”

“You know what we need.” Ian crosses his arms over his chest. “We need a big game hunter.”

“We need a platoon of big game hunters,” Billy says.

Sarah blows out a slow breath. “I’d hate for them to be killed just because they’re acting on their own natures.”

“Their own natures are killers, and humanity their prey. We’re not at the top of the food chain anymore.” Ian shifts closer to Sarah.

She snorts. “We never were, not really. We just had better protections for our soft spots.”

“Top of the food chain,” Ian says again. This time, Sarah laughs.

Lex scrapes her nails across her palm and then goes back to her computers. She understands them. She controls them. She knows exactly what to do with them. She knows exactly how she feels with them.

Kelly’s watching her. Lex can’t meet her eyes.

*

Maisie Lockwood is an adorable, charming kid, and Lex is terrified of her.

Kelly noticed the tension before, but when Maisie is standing in front of them, calm and quite a bit shy, standing between Claire and Owen, close enough she can brush her shoulders against their arms, Kelly finally realizes that Lex is afraid.

Afraid of what, she doesn’t know. Probably she shouldn’t ask. Lex is private but never hides things from her.

Not that she’s aware of, at least. Lex sure managed to surprise her when they broke up.

If Lex is keeping something to herself, something about Maisie, it has to be a big deal, a huge thing, and important. Kelly trusts her, despite everything. Because of everything. Lex understands what she went through with the dinosaurs, understands the way everyone in this group does, understands it even more because she, too, was just a girl when it happened, not an adult, but even more important, she knows Kelly.

Lex makes Kelly feel seen, and keeping that is worth everything.

Kelly brings Lex a mug of hot tea with copious amounts of honey. It’s cold in the living room even near Lex’s giant computer bank, and steam rises gently from the mug. Lex wraps her hands around it, fingers pressed to it, and Kelly is glad that Maisie wanted tea and Claire indulged her.

Still, Lex’s back is hunched forward, her shoulders tight with tension, and from the shadows under her eyes, the slight hollow beneath her cheeks, Lex is neither eating nor sleeping well.

Kelly puts her hands on Lex’s shoulders. Gives Lex a moment to pull away. She doesn’t. Then Kelly digs her fingers into the taut muscles there, working through them, light at first and then harder.

The moan Lex lets out is positively indecent, and Kelly shivers.

“Sarah and Claire teamed up,” Kelly murmurs. “They won’t let Dad hire any big game hunters. At best, they want to trap them. I think Ellie’ll be on their side soon. Alan too, maybe.”

“When will they learn you can’t trap monsters?” Lex asks. It’s an old argument. Kelly’s more on Sarah’s side than Lex’s.

“They’re not monsters.” Kelly presses her thumbs to the base of Lex’s neck, feeling the bone there, far too close to the surface for her liking.

Lex scoffs. “They’re not dinosaurs either, Kelly. They’re genetically engineered creatures.”

“They’re living animals, and they should be preserved.”

“They had their chance.” Lex’s voice is a low murmur, and she presses into Kelly’s hands. “They don’t get another.”

For a moment, Kelly’s fingers still. Then she goes back to massaging Lex’s shoulders and neck and tries not to let herself sound sad. “Lex Murphy doesn’t believe in second chances.”

Lex doesn’t get it, or maybe doesn’t want to show that she understands. Instead, she gives another low moan. This time, Kelly can’t help herself. She presses a quick kiss to the top of Lex’s head, squeezes her shoulders once more, and walks away.

*

Three nights later, Lex can’t stop thinking about that kiss.

It was nothing. A quick press of Kelly’s mouth to her hair and then she was gone. It was less contact than the hug at the airport, when she’d tucked her head down against Kelly’s shoulder, too close to her neck, and held on as hard as she could.

It was nothing, and yet Lex can feel it still.

They have a plan for the dinosaurs, or at least a sketchy resemblance to one: hire big game trappers, let Owen lead them. Trap the dinosaurs. Move them to a secure location. Where will that be? Claire and Ellie are still working on that. How will they move them? Tim, who showed up yesterday, and Maisie are putting the weight of the Hammond-Lockwood legacies into that. How will they keep it a secret? Alan and Ian and Sarah are still arguing over whether they should.

Lex has her computers and her security. Lex plants false leads for the other people looking for the dinosaurs (an unsurprisingly large amount of them are big game hunters -- guess the most dangerous game is no longer humanity). Lex researches and watches and learns.

Lex has _far_ too much time to think about that kiss, and Kelly, and all the reasons Lex decided wouldn’t work if they tried to do a long-distance relationship as an adult, reasons that seem, frankly, ridiculous now.

Lex was scared, she realizes, and it was easier to lock herself into work and into their family, as widespread as they are. Easier than dealing with the sheer amount of emotions Kelly engenders in her, overwhelming and terrifying and just a little painful in their intensity.

But Lex is older now, and Lex is more experienced now, and Lex is, maybe, braver now. At least a little. At least enough to make herself walk out onto the balcony where she knows Kelly is lurking, staring out to the west even though they can’t see the ocean in the darkness.

They can see the lights of distant cities and, above them, a night sky filled with stars.

“Kelly.”

Kelly looks up at her, and Lex bites her lower lip.

“This plan is ridiculous,” Kelly says, then smiles a little. “At least we’re not likely to die, I guess.”

Lex laughs. “Give it time. Do you really think all of them will stay out of the hunt?”

Kelly shakes her head.

“Will you?” Lex asks, suddenly worried that she doesn’t know Kelly as well as she used to, and maybe Kelly will throw herself into it all after Sarah (and Ian, who will certainly throw himself after Sarah), and for a terrible moment, Lex is afraid again.

Then, before Kelly can say anything, she adds, “May I kiss you? I really want to.”

Kelly stares at her for a long second, her expression unreadable. “I really want that too,” she says at last, and all the air rushes out of Lex in a rush.

Lex walks to her, and Kelly stands to meet her. Lex curls her hands along Kelly’s jaw and tilts her head up. Kisses her softly, a sweet press of their mouths together. Then, a second one, deeper, and she touches her tongue to Kelly’s lips, to her tongue when Kelly opens her mouth and lets Lex in.

She could stay like this for hours, her mouth on Kelly’s, her hands on Kelly’s skin. They do stay like that for a good long while, until Kelly’s hands creep under Lex’s shirt. Lex stumbles backward toward the door into her bedroom. Kelly’s just as clumsy, for all that she’s almost never out of control of her body.

Lex kisses Kelly as long as she can, breaks away from her only long enough to get them inside, kisses her again and again and again even as they tumble onto Lex’s bed. 

She’s scared a little, still, scared for Kelly and what she might do, and scared of Kelly, of all the ways Kelly makes her feel. But Lex has faced dinosaurs and lived, and she will face them again, and live.

She’s brave enough to let herself love, as much as it feels like drowning, and let herself be loved in return.


End file.
